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KAMPALA, UGANDA — Ugandan authorities objected Friday to new U.S. sanctions over what the United States calls significant corruption and gross human rights violations, saying the sanctions target parliament Speaker Anita Among and other officials who backed the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Law. On Thursday, the U.S. State Department placed travel and financial sanctions on Among for what it called significant corruption tied to her leadership position.  Others sanctioned were ministers Amos Lugolobi, Agnes Nandutu and Mary Goretti Gitutu for allegedly misusing public resources and diverting materials from Uganda’s neediest communities.  Ugandan State Minister for Foreign Affairs Oryem Okello argued that all the ministers who were sanctioned are currently facing Ugandan courts of law, which have yet to find rule on the cases. The sanctions also target Lieutenant General Peter Elwelu for his role in clashes between Ugandan security forces and a local militant group that resulted in the deaths of over 100 people.   However, Okello said the U.S. government’s action is really targeting Among.  "My belief is that this is an insult and undermines our judicial system,” Okello said.  “The sanctions are unjust. They are punitive,” he said. “They are bullish because they know that we cannot do anything against it. And it’s just deliberate to punish the speaker for her role and leadership to fight LBGTQ and homosexuality in Uganda.” The U.S. State Department said it stands with Ugandans advocating for democratic principles, a government that delivers for all its citizens and accountability for actions committed by those who abuse their positions through corruption and gross violations of human rights.  Ugandan political analyst Mary Anne Nanfuka said that those people targeted by the sanctions are not acting on their own and that sanctions never work as a deterrent.     “I see that these Western countries want to pander to their electorate,” Nanfuka said.  “They know very well that they need the government to cooperate with them in certain areas. So, once push comes to shove, they will let it pass. Yes, it’s a gesture, but no, we are still not impressed,” she said.  Chris Obore, the head of public affairs in the Ugandan parliament, said the corruption allegations are political and vendetta-driven, otherwise they would have targeted the entire Ugandan cabinet.  The State Department specifically mentioned a giveaway of iron roofing sheets that were meant for a poor community but were instead shared by top government members among themselves.   “It is a sign of their latent anger against the speaker for presiding over the anti-homosexuality law,” Obore said. “It is clear that the U.K., U.S., Canada have been putting pressure when that law was being debated here. Because it is not about iron sheets. How did the speaker personally benefit from those iron sheets when public schools that were roofed are there?”  Okello said Uganda will engage U.S. government officials and get to the bottom of how the State Department decided to approve the sanctions.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday called on Hamas militants to agree to a new offer from Israel on releasing hostages in exchange for a Gaza cease-fire, saying this is the best way to begin winding down the deadly conflict.  "With a cease-fire, that aid could be safely and effectively distributed to all who need it," Biden said.  "As someone who's had a lifelong commitment to Israel, as the only American president who has ever gone to Israel at a time of war, as someone who just sent the U.S. forces to directly defend Israel when it was attacked by Iran, I ask you to take a step back, think what will happen if this moment is lost," he said. "We can't lose this moment."  A hostage proposal put forward earlier this year called for the release of sick, elderly and wounded hostages in Gaza in exchange for a six-week cease-fire that could be extended to allow for more humanitarian aid to be delivered into the enclave.  The proposed deal fell apart earlier this month after Israel refused to agree to a permanent end to the war as part of the negotiations and ramped up an assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.  Hamas said on Thursday it had told mediators it would not take part in more negotiations during ongoing aggression but was ready for a "complete agreement," including an exchange of hostages and prisoners if Israel stopped the war.  Talks mediated by Egypt, Qatar and others to arrange a cease-fire between Israel and the Islamist movement in the Gaza war have repeatedly stalled, with both sides blaming the other for the lack of progress.  A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan would meet on Friday with diplomats from 17 countries who have citizens held hostage in Gaza by Hamas.  Israel will not agree to any halt in fighting that is not part of a deal that includes the return of surviving hostages, a senior Israeli security official said Friday.  Overshadowing Biden was an Israeli airstrike in Rafah on Sunday that killed 45 Palestinians.  White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday that recent Israeli ground operations in Rafah would not prompt a U.S. withdrawal of more military aid.  Palestinian health authorities estimate more than 36,280 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel attacked the enclave in response to an October 7 Hamas assault in southern Israel. The Hamas attack killed around 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. 

For the first time in American history, a former president has been found guilty of a felony. A look at Ukrainian children abducted from their homes and a reversal of policy from some of Ukraine’s Western allies now allows them to use weapons they’ve supplied against targets inside Russia. The Secretary of Defense is in Singapore to discuss threats in the Indo-Pacific and South Africa’s election may have finished, but the politics are far from over.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Borderland: The Line Within, a documentary directed by Pamela Yates and produced by Skylight Pictures, made its theatrical debut on May 3. Borderland takes viewers through a gripping narrative of how immigration enforcement agencies—from the U.S.-Mexico border to places well within our nation’s interior—have created what the film calls the “border industrial complex,” a system […]

The post Borderland: The Line Within Takes Viewers Through CBP’s Raid on a Humanitarian Aid Camp appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

WASHINGTON — The White House is finalizing plans for a U.S.-Mexico border clampdown that would shut off asylum requests and automatically deny entrance to migrants once the number of people encountered by American border officials exceeded a new daily threshold, with President Joe Biden expected to sign an executive order as early as Tuesday, according to four people familiar with the matter.  The president has been weighing additional executive action since the collapse of a bipartisan border bill earlier this year. The number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border has declined for months, partly because of a stepped-up effort by Mexico. Still, immigration remains a top concern heading into the U.S. presidential election in November, and Republicans are eager to hammer Biden on the issue.  The Democratic administration's effort would aim to head off any potential spike in crossings that could occur later in the year, as the fall election draws closer, when the weather cools and numbers tend to rise, two of the people said. They were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.  The move would allow Biden, whose administration has taken smaller steps in recent weeks to discourage migration and speed up asylum processing, to say he has done all he can do to control the border numbers without help from Congress.  The talks were still fluid, and the people stressed that no final decisions had been made.  The restrictions being considered are an aggressive attempt to ease the nation's overwhelmed asylum system, along with a new effort to speed up the cases of migrants already in America and another meant to quicken processing for migrants with criminal records or those who would otherwise be eventually deemed ineligible for asylum in the United States.  The people told the AP that the administration was weighing some of the policies directly from a stalled bipartisan Senate border deal, including capping the number of encounters at an average of 4,000 per day over a week and whether that limit would include asylum-seekers coming to the border with appointments through U.S. Customs and Border Protection's CBP One app. Right now, there are roughly 1,450 such appointments per day.  Two of the people said one option is that migrants who arrive after the border reaches a certain threshold could be removed automatically in a process like deportation and would not be able to return easily. Migrants were able to more easily return to the border if they were expelled under the pandemic-era policy known as Title 42. Under that arrangement, Mexico agreed to take back some non-Mexican nationalities, including migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.  Migrants, especially families, claiming asylum at the southern border are generally released into the United States to wait out their cases. But there are more than 2 million pending immigration court cases, and some people wait years for a court date while they live in limbo in the U.S.  Anyone can ask for asylum regardless of whether they arrive illegally at the border, but U.S. officials are increasingly pushing migrants to make appointments, use a legal pathway that avoids the costly and dangerous journey, or stay where they are and apply through outposts in Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica.  The Biden administration has grown ever more conservative on border issues as the president faces ceaseless criticism from Republicans and there are large numbers of migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico who are not easily returned, especially as global displacement grows from war, climate change and more. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Little Washington, Virginia — Senior officials from the United States, Japan, and South Korea convene in historic Little Washington, Virginia, on Friday, amid growing threats from North Korea and other pressing regional and global security issues.  U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell hosts Japan’s Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano, and South Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun at his farmhouse nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Washington.  The trilateral dialogue, a key deliverable from the historic 2023 Camp David Summit, reaffirms cooperation on economic security, critical and emerging technologies, and maritime security.  It also addresses various regional and global challenges, including North Korean threats, Russia's war on Ukraine, stability in the Taiwan Strait, and humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza, according to the State Department.  The latest trilateral talks follow North Korea's launch of suspected ballistic missiles toward its eastern sea May 30, reported by South Korea's military.  The launches occurred shortly after the country's unsuccessful attempt to launch a military reconnaissance satellite and after North Korean balloons dropped feces and garbage on South Korea's busy streets and public areas.  “Any kind of aerial object, certainly, we would find destabilizing and provocative, and we continue to consult closely with the Republic of Korea and Japan against these kinds of malign and destabilizing behaviors,” said State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel during a briefing on Thursday.  “We condemn the DPRK’s May 29th ballistic missile launch,” he noted, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  Friday's talks follow the recent revival of high-level dialogue among China, Japan, and South Korea after almost five years.  The countries are expected to discuss the outcomes of the trilateral summit held in Seoul on Monday, attended by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.  Former U.S. intelligence officials and analysts said the alliance between Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul is especially crucial amid rising military threats from the People’s Republic of China.   James Fanell, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former director of intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said, “Given the current military threats from the PRC, as exemplified by last week’s large-scale drills near Taiwan, and the ongoing rapid military buildup, all three nations should break free from incremental changes and adopt a much more assertive approach to regional security.” Others told VOA that countries in the region are not only worried about the economic fallout from any type of war, citing the importance of maintaining the status quo of the Taiwan Strait as an international waterway, but they also are very concerned about immediate Chinese threats following a potential forcible takeover of Taiwan.  "If China were to take Taiwan by force, then Chinese forces would be that much closer to their outlying territories. Especially in Japan, there's a fear that this would be the first step toward Chinese seizure of some of the southwestern islands,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  On Friday morning, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Campbell met with South Korea’s vice foreign minister, Kim, for a bilateral discussion.  The previous day, the State Department’s second-ranking diplomat held an inaugural vice-ministerial meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Okano, to focus on infrastructure development cooperation in other countries. That initiative is widely viewed as a key part of the two allies' strategy to counter China's influence in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

WASHINGTON — In a shift from his previous position, U.S. President Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to use American-provided weapons to counter Russian attacks in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, located just 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the border with Russia. Speaking from Prague on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed the change in policy. “Over the past few weeks, Ukraine came to us and asked the authorization to use weapons that we're providing to defend against this aggression, including against Russian forces that are massing on the Russian side of the border and then attacking into Ukraine,” he said. Blinken left open the possibility of the policy being applied to other regions of the conflict. “Going forward, we'll continue to do what we've been doing, which is, as necessary, adapt and adjust, he said. U.S. policy prohibiting the use of long-range missiles known as ATACMS, or Army Tactical Missile System, that could hit targets deep inside Russia has not changed. "This applies to counter-fire capabilities that are deployed just across the border. It does not apply to ATACMS or long-range strikes," said Michael Carpenter, senior director for Europe at the White House National Security Council. "This is meant to enable Ukrainians to defend themselves against what would otherwise be a Russian sanctuary across the border," Carpenter said in a Friday interview with VOA. Fearing escalation, Biden had been reluctant to authorize the use of weapons to hit targets inside Russia despite pressure from Ukraine and European allies. However, Moscow’s advances on Kharkiv in recent weeks may have persuaded him. The White House’s decision “does the minimum to help Ukraine with a difficult situation in the northeast,” removing “a major burden on Ukraine’s efforts to defend civilians in Kharkiv and to stop the Russian offensive,” said John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. At the same time, it “makes public a range of restrictions that seem designed to temper Moscow’s reaction.” “This half step is certainly better than none,” Herbst said, but it “does not send the necessary message of American resolve to the Kremlin.” Russian assets Biden is hosting Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo at the White House on Friday, following formal adoption of a plan by the European Union earlier this month to use profits from Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU for Ukraine's defense. To punish Moscow over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, G7 economies, including the United States and the EU, have immobilized vast sums of Russian central bank assets. U.S. and European officials have been debating on how to unlock these funds to help Kyiv. Biden signed legislation in April allowing Washington to seize the roughly $5 billion in Russian assets located in the United States. However, most of the approximately $280 billion Russian assets are in Europe, including $225 billion held by EU countries, the majority of which are frozen in Belgium. Last week G7 finance ministers said they will back the EU’s plan. Biden and other G7 leaders are set to formally give their support during their summit in Bari, Italy, this June. Under the plan agreed to by the EU, interest and other investment returns accruing on these assets could total more than $3 billion each year and will be used by Western allies to pay themselves back for funds they provide to Ukraine in the near term. Details of the plan are still unclear, said Ian Lesser, distinguished fellow and adviser to the president at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “What is clear is that it's going to be collected and used in the European level,” he told VOA. The funds could be used for economic support for Ukraine but also to back the purchase arms for Ukraine and support the European defense industries, he said. Russian officials have suggested they could retaliate by confiscating U.S. and European assets in Russia. While some countries may be concerned by the threat, others are worried about the precedent of using frozen assets under international law. “If this goes ahead, others who may be exposed to historic grievances of all kinds may find that they are having their assets ceased as reparations,” Lesser said. The plan is projected to yield as much as $50 billion for Ukraine in the near future. However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the ultimate goal is to seize Russian assets, not just the interest. "With all our gratitude for this decision today, the amounts are not commensurate [with the amount of frozen assets]," he told reporters. De Croo’s visit to Washington came days after his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Belgium. The leaders signed a security agreement which includes the delivery of 30 U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, another move to bolster Kyiv's defense capabilities against Moscow. "These F-16 jets will be provided to Ukraine as soon as possible. Our aim is to be able to provide first aircraft before the end of this year, 2024," De Croo said at a press conference with Zelenskyy earlier this week. However, he underscored those jets cannot be flown in Russian territory. De Croo is also expected to urge Biden to exert more pressure on Israel to change its war conduct and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. After Spain, Ireland and Norway said they would recognize a Palestinian state earlier this week, several parties pushed the Belgian Federal Government to do the same but failed to reach an agreement. Iuliia Iarmolenko contributed to this report.

SYDNEY — Australian researchers say a simpler and cheaper method to remove salt from seawater using heat could help combat what they call “unprecedented global water shortages." The desalination of seawater is a process where salt and impurities are removed to produce drinking water.   Most of the world’s desalination methods use a process called reverse osmosis. It uses pressure to force seawater through a membrane. The salt is retained on one side, and purified water is passed through on the other.  Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) say that while widespread, the current processes need large amounts of electricity and other expensive materials that need to be serviced and maintained.   Scientists at ANU say they developed the world’s first thermal desalination method. It is powered not by electricity, but by moderate heat generated directly from sunlight, or waste heat from machines such as air conditioners or other industrial processes.  It uses a phenomenon called thermo diffusion, in which salt moves from hot temperatures to cold. The researchers pumped seawater through a narrow channel, which runs under a unit that was heated to greater than 60 degrees Celsius and over a bottom plate that was cooled to 20 degrees Celsius. Lower-salinity water comes from the water in the top section of the channel, closer to the heat.  After repeated cycles through the channels, the ANU study asserts, the salinity of seawater can be reduced from 30,000 parts per million to less than 500 parts per million.  Juan Felipe Torres, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at the Australian National University and the project’s lead chief investigator, explained his pioneering work.   “We use a phenomenon people have not used before,” he said. “We are exploring its applicability in this context but in essence (it) should be something super simple, something as simple as a channel where you have water flowing through it and you are going to produce some sort of separation, and this is what thermal desalination is doing.”   The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has stated that by 2025, 1.8 billion people around the world are likely to face “absolute water scarcity.”   Torres said the ANU’s invention could help ensure water supplies to communities under threat because of climate change.  “Our vision, let’s say, for the future to have a more equitable world in terms of water security and food security is a method that does not require expensive maintenance or to train personnel to continue running it. So, we think thermal desalination would enable that,” he said.   The ANU team is building a multi-channel solar-powered device to desalinate seawater in the Pacific kingdom of Tonga, which is enduring a severe drought.   The research is published in the journal Nature Communications. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

It’s an emergence that’s been more than a decade in the making. Trillions of cicadas that have burrowed underground for 13 or 17 years are now emerging in parts of the Midwestern and Southern United States. And, VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, they are ready to mate.